A Woman Without Lies

Chapter 25

The minutes and hours, days and weeks with Hawk swept by, each with its own aching beauty. Angel didn’t allow herself to count the days, to add them up and discover the end of summer coming toward her with each sunset. Loving and losing Grant had taught her not to live in the past.

Loving and knowing she would lose Hawk had taught Angel not to live in the future. Instead she lived in each moment, loving Hawk more with each touch, each smile, each shared memory.

“Angie?”

Angel looked up, startled out of her thoughts by Derry’s call. The tiny silver bells hanging from her ears rang sweetly with her sudden movement.

“I’m in my studio,” she answered.

Derry swung easily into the room. He had long since overcome any awkwardness with his crutches. Nor had there been any awkwardness over Angel’s changed relationship with Hawk. Angel knew that Hawk had talked to Derry, but she didn’t know what had been said.

Any fear Angel might have had that Derry would resent her loving a man other than Grant had been erased when Derry hugged her and told her that she had never looked more beautiful.

“Where’s Hawk?” Derry asked.

“On the – ”

“Phone,” Derry finished, grimacing. “Who is it this time?”

Angel shrugged and smiled sadly.

“Tokyo, I guess,” she said. “He’s already talked with London, New York, Houston, L.A. and whoever was vacationing on Maui.”

In the last week Hawk had spent more and more time on the phone. Despite her determination not to count, Angel knew that Hawk had already stayed past his original time limit. The complex, interlocking business transactions that he had mentioned when he first came to the island were coming to fruition.

“From what I’ve gathered,” Angel said, “things are getting to the crisis stage.”

“Hawk and I will probably take the same plane off the island,” said Derry.

Tomorrow Derry would finally get his cast removed and fly to Harvard. His dream of becoming a doctor had been made possible by Hawk, who had bought Eagle Head for more than Derry thought the land was worth.

But as pleased as Derry was about his own future, when he mentioned leaving, Derry saw the quick flash of pain that Angel couldn’t wholly conceal.

“Hey,” Derry said quickly, “I’ll visit you in Seattle.”

He didn’t say anything about Hawk visiting her, because it never occurred to Derry that Hawk would not be in Seattle too.

Angel smiled and kissed Derry’s cheek.

“Summers and holidays,” she agreed.

But the instant Derry could no longer see her face, Angel’s mouth turned down in a sad curve.

Yes, Derry will come back to me.

Hawk will not.

“I think I’ll take my sketch pad and go up to Eagle Head,” Angel said. “If Hawk gets off the phone before five, give him directions to the old Smith homestead. The raspberries are ripe, and he’s never gone berrying.”

“He got his salmon, though.”

Angel smiled. Yes, Hawk had caught his dawn salmon, had known the thrilling, primal power of the fish as it leaped and tail-walked across the radiant sea. The look of awe and delight on Hawk’s face as he had felt the seething, silver life was something Angel would remember long after the pain of losing him had faded. If it ever faded.

She had never known anyone like Hawk. She could only guess what life would feel like when he was gone.

“I still don’t know why he turned that salmon loose,” Derry said.

“It was too beautiful to kill.”

“So were the other fish he caught, but we ate them anyway, and quarreled over the last scrap.”

“They weren’t the first salmon of dawn,” Angel said simply, remembering and loving Hawk until she thought she would break.

Derry hesitated, seeing the depth of emotion that transformed Angel.

“I may have dragged you out of that wreck,” Derry said softly, “but it’s Hawk who brought you alive. I’m so glad, Angie. There were times when I was afraid that I had condemned you to a lifetime of unhappiness.”

Angel hugged Derry a little fiercely, then grabbed her sketch pad and fled.

She thought of Derry’s words as she climbed the steep trail to the top of Eagle Head. The small chiming bells around her wrist and ankle kept her company with each step. She was still thinking about Derry’s words as she sat on the very edge of the summit, sketch pad forgotten in her lap.

Before her was the Inside Passage, the restless sea and ragged islands crowned with evergreens. Peak after peak fell away to the east, receding into a distance veiled with a blue so deep that it verged on black.

Both harsh and serene, the country called to her senses as nothing had – until Hawk. He was like the land itself, a paradox of stone and warmth, midnight and noon, the enigmatic distance of the horizon and the intimate textures of the air, the salt of the sea and the sweetness of berries heavy with the promise of harvest.

“You love this land, don’t you?”

Hawk’s quiet question didn’t startle Angel. Beneath her concentration on the view had been a growing awareness of Hawk’s presence, a subtle certainty like the knowledge of her own heartbeat deep inside her body.

“More than anything except you,” Angel said simply.

Then she realized that she had done exactly what she had been trying so hard to avoid. She had spoken of her love for Hawk. She didn’t want to hurt him with the very words that should give him pleasure.

“What time is it?” Angel asked, speaking quickly.

She didn’t want there to be any silence that might seem like a demand that Hawk speak to her of love. She didn’t expect that of him.

She never had, once she understood what his life had been like.

“It’s almost five,” Hawk said.

“Do you have time to go berrying?”

“I made time.”

Angel looked into Hawk’s dark eyes and saw the future coming down on her in a soundless rush.

He will be leaving.

Soon.

It was there in Hawk’s eyes, in his voice, in the fact that he had made time to be with her.

“Angel – ” said Hawk tightly, seeing the shadows deepen in her eyes, knowing why.

Overhead an eagle called. The high, savagely beautiful whistle descended until there was nothing left but silence and empty sky.

“We’d better hurry,” she said “We haven’t much time.”

Angel came to her feet in a graceful surge. As she moved, silver bells cried and chimed.

The exquisite sounds went into Hawk like a thousand tiny knives. His arms came around Angel, lifting her off her feet. He held her with all his strength and kissed her as though the world was crumbling beneath their feet.

Time stopped until Hawk finally released Angel, allowing her to lead him down the rocky path. Neither of them spoke, content to share the other’s presence with simple touches, gentle smiles, swift looks, as though each feared the other had vanished between one heartbeat and the next.

The silence remained while they drove to the berry patch. It was at the end of an abandoned, rutted road. A long time ago there had been a farmhouse, neat fields, and the orderly rows of a home garden. Now the fields were nearly consumed by returning forest. All that remained were waist-high fieldstone fences where raspberry bushes strove and twined thickly, growing over stone and field alike.

An ancient, magnificent climbing rose mantled the ruined stone chimney, all that remained of the farmhouse. From this bush had come the crimson rose that bloomed deep within Angel’s mind, triumphant and serene. She had first seen the Smith homestead and the climbing rose as a child. She had been haunted by the rose ever since.

As though at a distance, Angel heard the car trunk close. Hawk was standing near the rosebush, waiting for her. He had empty pails in one hand, a picnic basket in the other, and a thick quilt over his shoulder.

Angel took a deep breath, letting the future slide away, taking all shadows with it. There was only this instant, Hawk waiting for her, smiling his heartbreaking, beautiful smile.

She walked toward Hawk, wrapped in the sweet chiming of bells. She looked at the picnic basket and smiled at Hawk in return, loving him for thinking of it.

“A picnic,” Angel said softly. “What a wonderful idea.”

“I have ulterior motives,” Hawk said, his voice deep. “As much as I like Derry, I want some time just with you.”

Angel’s smile slipped, then steadied. She understood how Hawk felt. They were alone only when they were on the boat or late at night when the house was all darkness. There hadn’t been enough time for just being together, sharing the silences and small touches that spoke so eloquently of their pleasure in each other.

Not enough time.

How much time is left? Angel thought.

Not enough.

Deliberately, Angel tilted her face up to the old climbing rose. A single blossom remained, its petals soft and quivering, gathering the rich afternoon light into each luminous crimson curve.

She closed her eyes and wondered if the fragile rose knew that winter was closer with each sunset.

Hawk bent and kissed Angel’s lips gently. He sensed the sorrow in her, knew its cause, and was helpless to ease it.

The thought of how he was hurting Angel tore at Hawk, making him bleed in ways he had never imagined possible. He knew that the longer he spent with her, the greater the hurt would be each time she was brought up against his inability to love her as she should be loved.

Every day Hawk had promised himself that he would leave Angel, set her free, stop hurting her.

And every day he had awakened and seen an angel sheltered in the dark curve of his body. She would look at him, smiling, and he would know that he could not leave her.

Not yet.

He had to taste for a few more hours the miracle of her love.

“Where should we begin?” Hawk asked, lifting his mouth just enough to let Angel answer.

“In the center,” she murmured, rubbing her lips against his. “I know a path through the center of the brambles. That’s where the sweetest berries are. Surrounded by thorns.”

“And mosquitoes?”

“A few,” Angel admitted. “No such thing as a free lunch, remember?”

Hawk smiled. “I remember. That’s why I brought insect repellent. I didn’t want anything but me biting your smooth skin.”

Angel felt a frisson of desire race through her. The more Hawk touched her, the more she wanted to be touched by him. She never tired of his lovemaking, of having him become a part of her.

“It’s in my pocket,” Hawk said. “Would you get it?”

He held out his hands to her, showing that they were fully occupied with buckets and picnic basket and couldn’t be expected to pull a bottle of insect repellent from a tight pocket.

First, Angel tried the back pockets of Hawk’s jeans, which was where she carried repellent when she thought to bring it. Hawk’s back pockets were empty. She tried his front pockets, wiggling her hands into the worn, confining cloth.

“Nothing,” Angel said.

“Keep searching,” Hawk said, the corners of his mouth curling in a secret smile beneath his mustache. “You’ll find it.”

For a few seconds Angel took Hawk at his word and wriggled her fingers around in his pockets. Then she felt the heat and hardness of him swelling beneath his jeans.

“You’re teasing me,” she said, trying to look angry and failing utterly.

“I would have sworn I was the one being teased,” Hawk said, his voice deep and rich with hidden laughter. Then Angel’s hand moved inside his pocket and his breath caught.

“My shirt pocket, Angel.”

She smiled with an innocence that was belied by the dancing light of her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, she removed her hands from Hawk’s pockets.

The insect repellent was indeed in the breast pocket of Hawk’s cotton flannel shirt. She applied the pungent lotion to his exposed skin and to her own. Then she put the small squeeze bottle back – in his front jeans pocket.

“The repellent only works against insects,” Hawk pointed out.

“That’s a relief,” Angel said, smiling with an invitation that made his eyes gleam.

Then Angel turned and ran toward the raspberry brambles, making the silver bells at her ankle and wrist shiver with music.

For a moment Hawk stood and watched her graceful flight, aching with a hunger that went much deeper than the temporary urgency of desire. Then he began to run, moving lightly despite his burden.

Angel was soon lost to sight in the twists and turns of the bramble patch, but the sweet silver cries of the bells called to Hawk, telling him that she was close.

He caught up to Angel in a clearing where the raspberries had not yet grown. The air was thick with the delicate perfume of ripening fruit. Leaves shimmered and stirred lazily beneath a caressing wind. Canes laden with fruit arched richly against the cobalt sky, and the serrated green foliage quivered with golden sunlight.

“Derry was right,” Hawk said, turning to Angel. “You know every beautiful place on the island. Or maybe it’s simply that you bring beauty to every place you are.”

“It must be you,” Angel said, her voice husky. “I don’t remember the homestead being like this before.”

She took the buckets from his hand and waited while he spread the quilt and put the picnic basket in the shade. When he came back to her, she silently held out a bucket to him. Then she laced her fingers through Hawk’s as she led him toward the bushes heavy with fruit.

“Berrying is a cross between clamming and crabbing,” Angel said. “Like crabs, raspberry bushes will get you if you’re careless.”

“No free lunch?” suggested Hawk dryly.

“No free lunch,” Angel agreed. “The first rule of berrying is that if the fruit were easy to pick, something would have picked it already.”

Hawk smiled slightly. “Any other rules?”

“Don’t eat more than one berry for every one you put in the bucket. Otherwise you’ll get sick.”

“Learned that the hard way, didn’t you?” Hawk guessed.

“Is there any other way to learn?”

Angel showed Hawk how to choose the best fruit, ripe without being mushy, tart without being green. They picked side by side, sharing a companionable silence.

“Is this one ripe?” Hawk asked finally, holding out a berry to Angel.

“Only one way to be sure.”

Angel opened her mouth expectantly. Smiling, Hawk fed her the berry. She made a clicking sound with her tongue.

“A bit tart,” she said.

Angel looked at a cluster of raspberries hanging from a nearby cane. Picking the most perfect berry, she turned back to Hawk.

“Try this one,” she offered.

Hawk sucked the raspberry from Angel’s fingertips, licking her skin as he did. He closed his eyes and made a sound of pleasure.

“It tastes like you,” he murmured. “Incredible.”

Hawk opened his mouth again in silent request. Angel popped in another berry. He opened his mouth again, and then again, until she laughed and stood on tiptoe, kissing him.

The taste of Hawk and raspberries swept over Angel’s senses. Suddenly she clung to him, kissing him as wildly as he had kissed her on Eagle Head. When the embrace finally ended, they both were breathing raggedly.

“How many more berries does Mrs. Carey need?” asked Hawk, his eyes a clear brown fire.

“Buckets and buckets.”

Hawk swore softly.

“Then we’d better get to it,” he said, reluctantly stepping back from Angel.

They returned to picking, working quickly, watching each other with secret, sidelong glances. They filled their buckets, emptied them into a larger container, and returned to picking.

“You’re eating more than you’re putting in the bucket,” Angel said after a time.

Hawk turned toward her. His mouth was stained with the rich juice of the fruit he had been sneaking like a child.

“But if I get sick,” he said, “I’ll have something better than a hot water bottle to curl up with.”

Smiling, Hawk and Angel both returned to picking. Then Angel found an extraordinary raspberry. Full, richly colored, all but bursting with sweetness, the berry glowed like a jewel in her palm. She set down her bucket and ran to Hawk.

“This is the most perfect raspberry I’ve ever seen,” Angel said, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. “Open up.”

Hawk looked at the transparent red juice staining Angel’s lips rather than at the berry.

“You found it,” he said. “It should be for you.”

“It’s got your name on it.”

The corners of Hawk’s mouth curled up gently. He looked at the bright, unblemished berry.

“I don’t see my name,” he said.

“The light must be wrong for you,” Angel said, letting the raspberry roll down and nestle in her palm. “See? Right there. Your name.”

Hawk looked, but he saw only the love implicit in Angel’s gift. Slowly he bent his head. He licked the berry from her palm, then kissed the spot where the fruit had rested.

The ache Hawk felt slicing through him had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with the angel who watched him with love in her eyes.

Hawk wanted to ask where Angel’s softness and strength had come from, to delicately touch every secret of her past and future, to know if he could ever love as she did, sweetness and fire and courage in equal measure. Yet even as he opened his mouth, he knew he couldn’t ask that of her.

So Hawk asked the only question he could, and Angel heard the other question beneath it, the one he couldn’t ask.

“Are these wild raspberries?” Hawk asked, looking at the thicket that all but surrounded him.

“No. They’re like a house cat that has gone feral,” Angel said. “Bred and created by man, for man, and then abandoned to live alone. Most things that are treated like that wither and die. Some things survive… and in the right season the strongest of the survivors bear a sweet, wild fruit that is the most beautiful thing on earth. Like you, Hawk.”

Hawk let the bucket of raspberries slip from his hand. He picked up Angel in a single, swift movement, and then he held her tightly, saying all that he could, her name a song on his lips until his mouth found hers in a kiss that left both of them shaking.

He carried her to the quilt and undressed her as though it were the first time, his hands exquisitely gentle, his mouth a sweet fire consuming her. When she could bear no more he came to her, filling her mind and her body, loving her in the only way he could.

It was the same later that night, a beauty that destroyed and created Angel, death and rebirth in the arms of the man she loved. She touched Hawk equally, fire and hunger, the promise of her mouth both hot and sweet, innocent and knowing, worshipping his body until he pulled her around him and was burned to his soul by an angel’s ecstatic fire.

Long after Angel fell asleep in his arms, Hawk lay awake, watching the patterns of moonlight and darkness beyond Angel’s windows. Then he slowly eased away from her, holding his breath for fear that she would wake.

If she awakened, Hawk wouldn’t have the strength to leave her. He would stay and stay, drinking from the well of her love, giving nothing in return.

If I stay, I’ll destroy her.

For long, long minutes, Hawk stood beside the bed and watched his angel sleep. He bent down, aching to touch her, but did not. His hand hesitated over the pillow next to her head.

Then Hawk turned and walked soundlessly out of the house, into the night.

Sunlight woke Angel, sunlight spilling in golden magnificence across her pillow. She murmured sleepily and reached for Hawk. Her hand touched emptiness. She sat up quickly, looking around. And then she froze.

Resting on Hawk’s pillow was a small candy cane wrapped with a shiny green ribbon.

Angel put her head in her hands and wept, knowing that Hawk had gone.